The text on pg. 115 was written to show the disparity between Chris’ parents’ beliefs and experience with money and Chris’ radically different perception of wealth. The overall tone seems ironic; Billie is apathetic about spending her hard-earned wealth while Chris is portrayed as being embarrassed by it. The author describes the “greatest paradox” (Krakauer 115) as Chris’ view on money-Billie emphasized that she “worked very, very hard” for the wealth, which is why she felt entitled to spent it. The author’s use of phrases like “struggling to rise above” to illustrate the work put in to earn Chris’ parents’ wealth and “didn’t flaunt their modest wealth” to endear the reader to the plight and subsequent triumph of the early years of Chris’ parents paints a brilliant background with which to juxtapose Chris’ pseudo-communistic views on the subject of money.
Chris did not see his parents’ wealth the same way whatsoever. Described as being “the teenage Tolstoyan”, he viewed wealth as “shameful, corrupting, and inherently evil”. Chris almost hated wealth, it seemed—not only is there situational irony in that he was brought up in wealth and ended up despising it, but there is also situational irony in that he was a born capitalist with “an uncanny knack for making a buck”. Overall, Chris’ dislike of wealth compared to his parents’ belief that it is well-deserved creates a paradoxical piece of text with large amounts of irony and contradiction that put readers at a quandary of who to sympathize with.
ByOdinsBeardGuest
